How Navy SEALs Handle Stress (And Why Your Brain is Sabotaging You)

The most stressed I’ve ever been was about 2 years ago when I packed up my entire life, found a new apartment in New York City (from Ohio), and started a new job—all in 20 days.

It started small. A slight tightness in my chest when I thought about the timeline. Then it escalated. I couldn’t focus on meetings—my mind kept drifting to Zillow listings and backup plans. I was checking email every other hour, hoping for responses from landlords who probably thought I was just some desperate Midwestern kid.

2 AM became my new research hour, scrolling through apartment listings that were either too expensive, too far from work, or already rented.

I knew I was spiraling, but I couldn’t stop.

Every “what if” scenario played on repeat: What if no one responds? What if I have to couch-surf for months? What if I look like an idiot showing up to my new job homeless?

I was trapped in my head, reacting to threats that might not even exist, completely paralyzed by things I couldn’t control.

And here’s the thing—while I was busy having a mental breakdown, I was neglecting the things I could actually do something about.

Here’s what I wish I’d known then: the most elite warriors on the planet have a dead-simple system for handling exactly this kind of stress.

First, let’s talk about what’s happening when your mind goes to war with itself.

Your brain operates on two fundamental systems:

The Behavioral Activation System (BAS): This is your “let’s go get it” mode. Forward-thinking, solution-focused, action-oriented. This is you at your absolute best—clear, confident, moving toward your goals.

The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS): This is your threat-detection mode. Cautious, nervous, constantly scanning for danger. This is you checking email for the 47th time today, convinced something terrible is about to happen.

Here’s the problem: when you’re stressed, your BIS system doesn’t just activate—it completely takes over your entire operating system.

You’re no longer thinking about solutions. You’re just reacting to threats, real or imagined. Your brain gets stuck in what psychologists call “threat rigidity”—you lose cognitive flexibility and creativity right when you need them most.

The truth is, most of your stress doesn’t come from real threats. It comes from your brain’s interpretation of an event based on your perception of how significant that event is for you and your well-being.

Essentially, your brain’s perception of any event goes like this:

If the event is determined as stressful, you’ll immediately start thinking about your resources to cope with the stressor. If your perception is that you don’t have the resources to handle it, your stress will skyrocket.

But here’s the kicker: most of the time, we worry about events that are completely out of our control—and by definition, we don’t have the resources to handle things we can’t control.

This gap between what you think you need to handle and what you think you can handle is where stress lives.

Navy SEALs don’t have the luxury of overthinking. When bullets are flying and lives are on the line, they use a brutally simple decision-making model based on one fundamental principle: locus of control.

Here’s their framework:

Step 1: Analyze the stressor
Step 2: Ask one critical question: “Can I control this?”
Step 3: If yes, attack the problem (don’t be defensive—go on offense)
Step 4: If no, assess it, realize you have zero control, and move on

That’s it. No complicated mental gymnastics. No “but what if” scenarios. No endless rumination.

Most stress comes from trying to control things that are completely out of our hands.

It’s almost always the uncertainty, the variables you can’t influence, the other people’s decisions that drive you crazy.

The moment you stop wasting mental energy on what you can’t control, you suddenly have massive resources available for what you can.

Through the years, as I’ve learned more about stress, I realized one of my methods for dealing with it matches what research suggests you should do.

It’s dead simple, but it works every single time:

Step 1: Let the emotion wash over you
Don’t fight it. Feel the stress, the anger, the frustration. Set a timer if you need to. This isn’t weakness—it’s giving your BIS system permission to do its job and then move on. Neuroscience shows that the physiological lifespan of an emotion is about 90 seconds. After that, you’re choosing to keep it alive.

Step 2: Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle
Left side: “What I can control”
Right side: “What I can’t control”

Step 3: Fill out both sides with brutal honesty
For my apartment situation, it looked like this:
Can control: Following up with landlords, having documents ready, coming up with backup plans for short-term leases, expanding my search radius
Can’t control: Other applicants, landlord response times, NYC housing market, whether owners like me

Step 4: Circle the most important thing on the left
What’s the one action that will actually move the needle? For me, expanding my search and having backup options ready.

Step 5: Tear off the right side and literally throw it away
This isn’t metaphorical. Physically rip off that side of the paper and throw it in the trash. Those concerns are now officially irrelevant to your effort.

Step 6: You now have an action list, not a worry list
Everything on that left side becomes your offensive strategy.

This process gives you back your locus of control. Instead of feeling helpless and reactive, you have concrete actions to take. You’ve shifted from BIS mode (threat detection) back to BAS mode (goal pursuit).

When you clarify what you can actually control, that gap between what you think you need to handle and what you think you can handle shrinks dramatically. When you take immediate action on what you can control, you prove to yourself that you can handle it. When you stop wasting mental energy on what you can’t control, you suddenly have massive cognitive resources available for what you can.

The compound effect is powerful. Each time you use this framework, you’re training your brain to default to solution-mode instead of panic-mode. You’re literally rewiring your stress response.

Don’t try to overhaul your entire stress response overnight. Start with this:

Next time you feel that familiar clench of stress, try the 90-second reset and paper exercise. Just once. Time yourself. See how it feels to physically throw away your “can’t control” list.

If you want to accelerate the process, add tactical breathing when you catch yourself spiraling: inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4. Do this for 2-3 minutes. It activates your parasympathetic nervous system and literally tells your threat-detection system to stand down.

The key is consistency. Each time you use this framework, you’re training your brain to default to solution-mode instead of panic-mode.

Get the SEAL Box Breathing Guide → Step-by-step instructions for the 4×4 tactical breathing method with timing cues

Stress isn’t your enemy. It’s information. It’s your brain trying to protect you from threats.

But most of the time, it’s protecting you from threats that don’t exist or problems you can’t solve anyway.

Navy SEALs don’t have superhuman stress tolerance. They just have a better system for deciding what deserves their attention and energy.

Your brain is wired to keep you alive, not to make you happy or successful. When it detects uncertainty, it assumes the worst and prepares for battle. But you don’t have to be a victim of your own neurochemistry.

Here’s what I learned during those 20 stressful days in Ohio:

Every minute you spend worrying about what you can’t control is a minute stolen from taking action on what you can.

Your energy is finite. Your time is limited. Your mental bandwidth is precious.

Stop spending it on things you can’t control.

Save it for the things you can.

The goal isn’t to become a Zen master overnight. It’s to spend more time in your BAS system—focused, forward-thinking, taking action instead of just reacting to imaginary threats.

Time will pass anyway. Stress will come anyway. The question is: will you let it paralyze you, or will you use it as fuel to become someone who can handle whatever comes next?

Get sick of being controlled by your stress.

Stop fighting ghosts, and start fighting for the life you want.

Hope this helps.

— Johnathan